At CES 2024 tech show, seeking robots neither too human nor too machine

tech.hindustantimes.com:

With big, expressive eyes, elfin ears and adorable cooing, Miroka and Miroki could be an apparition from your favorite cartoon.

But te, and designed to perform the drudgery of logistical support in hospitals or hotels.

"Why live with ugly machines," says Jerome Monceaux, head of Paris-based start-up Enchanted Tools, who was on hand to present the pair at the CES tech show in Las Vegas last week.

"I could cut their heads off and erase their colors, but I'm not sure you'd want to share your daily life with them," he continues.

A number of start-ups are working on robots that look familiar and help humans, without making them feel uncomfortable or unsafe.

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Amazon is currently testing Agility's "Digit", a two-legged android that wouldn't look out of place in Star Wars, to carry plastic bins in its warehouses.

Enchanted Tools has also bet on team-playing robots, designed to relieve staff of repetitive tasks.

But in addition to helping out, Miroki is meant to bring a touch of "wonder" to the workplace.

"It's a way of celebrating something very beautiful in ourselves and avoid becoming machines ourselves," said Monceaux.

His company hopes to produce 100,000 robots over the next 10 years.

Every CES brings its share of companion robots and androids, but they haven't gained much ground in homes and businesses.

At the same time, "labor shortage has been the number one problem since Covid across different industries. Today, we have roughly 18 million job vacancies," said Joe Lui, the global lead on robotics at Accenture.

And while some tasks have been adapted for mechanical arms and autonomous forklifts, many others require language, mobility and understanding of the environment and therefore humans.

Or humanoids infused with artificial intelligence, said Lui, who thinks AI can bring robots into everyday life.

"Humanoids are going to be really like coworkers in the coming years and natural language interfaces like ChatGPT are going to be prevalent," said